Feeling daunted by my child starting reception - how much should I help after school ?

Listening to her read is helping with phonics. You aren't being tested or judged here. Loads of people have told you to chill out and just do that but you seem determined to keep putting unnecessary pressure on yourself and your daughter.

If the school send home worksheets for phonics you can choose to do them or not but you absolutely don't need to be seeking out extra work.

Help, yes. Teach, no.

She just needs you to read with her, and play games with letters and numbers. Letters have names, and they also have sounds. That is all. Any more than that and you risk putting her off reading altogether. Books need to be fun and enjoyable, not hard work.

Don't stress just do what the school ask - for us it was phonics practice and read a book a week. We usually do a bedtime story so would do much more than 1 a week!

Stop stressing yourself. I have done barely anything with my kids. I read to them. I get them to read to me. I make sure they practice their spellings and times tables and I make sure they do their homework and help if needed. Neither are behind. Both are exceeding in certain subjects.
You don’t have to do anything extra. You don’t have to stress yourself out trying to be that insta mum.
Just do the work the school sets. Don’t stress about tests and what they are ‘supposed’ to know. That’s the schools problem. If you stress about tests you’ll make your kid anxious about it as well and make her feel like exams are the be all and end all which they are NOT.
My dd has SATS this year. I’ve told her right the way through that this is an assessment of the school. Not of her and they don’t matter. If she was worried I’d pull her out of school that week and she wouldn’t do them. We do not base our worth on exams

You’re putting too much pressure on your DD - so what if she doesn’t know her sounds and letters - she will do at some stage. Homework is optional in primary - we didn’t do any other than read to them, which we’d always done.
Let her settle into school and enjoy herself - learning should be fun and not a competition.

I think you're being a bit dramatic sorry. All you need to do is regular reading which is something you should be doing anyway. The school don't expect you to be teaching phonics at home, and since a lot of us weren't taught with phonics when we were young us attempting to teach our own way just makes things confusing

This and ask stuff like what’s the best thing that happened at school today?

mine are secondary now, she will be exhausted. let her sleep and decompress.
I used to build weekend activities around school topics. So autumn, and hibernating animals we would go to a wildlife trust event about it, or to a park to collect leaves to look at. That sort of thing
science museums, art galleries you get the picture. Try to make it make sense and relate to the outer world.

ask pointed questions about her day, it’s too much asking about the entire day.
talk to her teacher and involve yourself in the school if you have the time.

Reading as everyone has said and just talking about things. Counting games like snakes and ladders. House numbers on even side of road to count in twos. Motor skills e.g. Lego and colouring, riding a bike, catching a ball. School is tiring so enough rest. Spend as much time as possible outside after school before clocks change and at weekends.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but isn't it supposed to be the school's job to teach them?

My expectations would be just that. Parents can read with their dc or help them a bit with spellings or whatever, but the school is supposed to be doing the actual teaching, not the parents.

So, you can see the impact of always having to be perfect on yourself and how it has continued to impact you into adulthood, yes? Don't let that happen to your daughter too. She may be academic, she may not. It doesn't matter. Just try to relax and let her be herself, whatever that may mean.

Read to her. And talk to her. Absolutely no need to do anything else.

Aww it does sound like you're putting so much pressure on yourself and I can definitely identify with some of your experience.
I would really try to reframe your role as delivering her to school as ready to learn as you can rather than teaching her anything yourself. And celebrating whatever achievements she makes, regardless of what any other child is doing. As others have said, any measuring at this age isn't a useful predictor.
My priority at this age would be that she is mostly happy to go to school (everyone has the odd bad day) and is progressing over time from her personal starting point.

As much as you enjoy. It should be fun not pressure. Please don't beat yourself up about this. Just include her in normal things that might support learning, like counting the vegetables in a recipe or counting cakes on a plate.spotting things on a nature walk & talking about them, drawing & craft and encoraging her to develop interests on her own, not just with you If sh doesnt want to talk about her day at school thats fine. I never worried too much about what they learnt & hitting targets & both are achieving well in secondary. My main concern was did they have friends and are they socialising well. Putting effort into spending time with other positive people is effort well spent I think, if they enjoy it.

It's so easy to fall into the competitiveness that happens between parents. With my first, I felt it when I heard of other children being on higher book bands, getting greater depth in everything etc. My advice is to not engage in these discussions.....with my second I realise that none of it really matters at this young age as the my all change, have leaps etc at different times. Also remember that a lot of it now is to do with brain development rather than intelligence, and this happens at different rates. The ones who are ahead now won't necessarily be the ones who are ahead come year 1, 2, 3 etc. I'm sure you won't but try not to let your dd pick up on the pressure you are feeling, it's not a race or a competion, it's only reception!

You're worrying way, way too much.

She's just started school , the teachers will teach her phonics and then let you know in due course how you can support her. They haven't had a chance to teach her anything yet so just be patient and wait till your first parents evening or if they offer any sessions to parents to help support phonics go to that. If you start worrying in her first week of reception that she's already "behind" you're going to drive yourself mad by half term. Just chill out. Mine did phonics for the first 2 years, it's a marathon not a sprint. Every child learns at a different pace.

What you can do is read to her. Show an interest in her day, talk to her about her friends that kind of stuff. Playdoh and drawing to build fine motor. Make sure she's ok putting clothes on and off/doing her coat up, building independence.

I am sorry the school has made you feel anxious about your child being behind during week one.

The school will teach phonics. The assessment won't be a formal thing which you fail, it will just be to see if your child has learnt the sound they have been taught before they move on. They will do phonics all through reception, year 1 and even year 2 , so it's not a quick thing.

Education is a marathon not a sprint so being the first to get somewhere isn't necessary.

Questions like “who did you play with today?” And “what was the best thing today?” Can be much better than a “how was school?” Type I have found.

They may well be, but so what. Your daughter will probably be able to do things they can't too.

Don't bombard her with questions until you're home and she's had a snack or you might just get "can't remember" as a response. Be happy to see her, chat about the evening ahead and follow her lead with the conversation. With the after school work go with what the school advise, read together daily, don't force more learning on her if she's tired and remember it's ok to not do the homework if she's tired!

Definitely don't make her do extra stuff after school! Do read together but don't worry overly about whether you are reading the book sent home by school or something else - don't make it a battle. Go to the library and let her choose whatever books she likes.
Ignore the other parents, sounds like you may have many years of these parents telling you that little Jonny and Jane have done x, y, z.
I'm sure she will be fine with the assessment but if not she might get some extra help with phonics. Nobody at a job interview is going to ask what happened in her reception phonics screening!!
No need to tell us if you don't want to but is there a particular reason you're feeling so worried about this? For example, did you have a parent who either couldn't help with your schoolwork or alternatively was very invested in your achievements or compared a lot to others?
How do you feel about your own school experience?
Do you have any reason to think she might struggle? (If not I really would leave her to it and see how she gets on)
Are you in an area or do you come from a family that is particularly competitive about grades/scores/performance?
I have found my children going to school has made me reflect on some of my own attitudes so maybe just worth considering what might have influenced your feelings around this.

My children (teens) do very well at school. I have never done any formal learning with them outside school, just tried to instil a love of learning.

I always saw phonics etc is school's job. Instead we encouraged interest in the topics they were doing (day trips to a Roman villa when doing Romans for example), made sure we experienced stories of all kinds by reading them aloud, watching them and talking about them, having books and comics in the house, and tried to play lots of counting and betting type games together. Singing is good and music too, creating it and listening to it.

I have tried to ignore the competitive nature of school achievements and tell them the path of their learning and improvement is what matters, not where they are placed against other people (and to repeat this to myself too, I won't pretend this is easy with other parents either). Obviously I have helped with homework where necessary but I really think that the job of home is to focus on enjoyment of learning not the bolts and bricks of it, which is what school is for.

I bet that you are already doing, informally, all that you need to be doing in order to help her thrive at school. Just reading to her, talking with her about the world, encouraging her intrinsic disposition towards learning and exploring. A lot of the 'learning support' activities parents are urged towards are just formalisations of the learning opportunities afforded by normal caring back and forth between parents and children.

If at any point the teacher says to you that DD hasn't quite got up to speed with such-and-such, then that might be the point at which you can use some of the formalised activities (not so much to help her with her learning, but to help her express her new understandings in the terms that the curriculum requires her to.)